Interesting calendar, the only major downside to it is no Petit Le Mans... and to make that downside even worse, the Bahrain race has been scheduled on the very same weekend, so no major teams can sensibly do both races at the same time. Otherwise, a pretty good calendar.

For clarification purposes, the 12 Hours of Sebring clashes with the Australian GP, and if it takes place on Nov 18, the race in China clashes with the USGP, but otherwise the WEC and F1 calendars are separate in terms of dates.

Calendar-wise that has to be the worst calendar of endurance racing world championship history! After Sebring, Spa and the 24 heures there's little I'm looking forward to. Especially the end of the season could not be a bigger anti-climax than that.

But then again, this comes hardly as a surprise. At least they have Sebring and Spa, two real endurance circuits.

PS: Didn't the Lausitzring have an endurance configuration? If they ever plan to run in Germany (once Porsche is back on board...), please don't go to the butchered Hockenheim- or Nürburgrings! They might just as well risk a little bit and try this endurance configuration at the Lausitzring, that might make up for the missing Daytona!

EDIT 2: They still list the endurance config on the website: http://www.lausitzri...cke-113-km.htmlBut probably after Alboreto's accident a race there with prototypes won't be likely. In fact they say that there never was a single race with this configuration!It's furthermore a shame that they don't use any of the oval's corners at speed (they use the last one, as the DTM does, when they're still quite slow). And apparently that configuration cannot use any oval part in the way Daytona does, because of the way the long slope is connected to the actual circuit: apparently, you can only reach it from the infield configuration.I think it would be nice to see an endurance race there, though, at least there are some long-ish straits. I cannot possibly be worth than what's left of the Nürburgring.

So now Petit Le Mans turns, for WEC entrants that want to race there as well, from an impossibility into a nightmare of logistics (but still a possibility). Fuji is now one week ahead of Road Atlanta, and Bahrain has been moved to remove the clash.

JR Motorsport (which won the FIA GT1 title last year with Nissan) is going to compete in the LMP1 class this year with a Honda-powered prototype, as is Strakka Racing (the team which is sponsored by Relentless).

JR Motorsport (which won the FIA GT1 title last year with Nissan) is going to compete in the LMP1 class this year with a Honda-powered prototype, as is Strakka Racing (the team which is sponsored by Relentless).

And speaking of JRM, they've just confirmed their full-season driver trio, and it's quite a high-caliber one if I may say so: Peter Dumbreck, Karun Chandhok and David Brabham.

I haven't followed endurance racing actively since the Group C days and playing catch-up now. Could someone help me and answer to these questions:

1) What is the difference between WEC and LMS?
2) Are the top guns (Audi, Toyota, etc. ) also attending LMS?
3) Is Eurosport covering the series, or what is the best channel to follow the events in Europe?

I haven't followed endurance racing actively since the Group C days and playing catch-up now. Could someone help me and answer to these questions:

1) What is the difference between WEC and LMS?2) Are the top guns (Audi, Toyota, etc. ) also attending LMS?3) Is Eurosport covering the series, or what is the best channel to follow the events in Europe?

1) World Endurance Championship vs European Le Mans Series. LMS is only in Europe and has no LMP1. WEC is the world championships.

2) No, it doesn't have an LMP1 class so they wouldn't even if they wanted to.

And 3) Eurosport should cover the WEC, questionable coverage and airtimes for most of it, but comprehensive and full coverage of Le Mans itself. As for the LMS, most likely Motors TV.

Screw you FIA/ACO for abandoning Petit Le Mans and having your god damn Borerain race on the same weekend!!!!

Well they probably only wanted one event in the United States for whatever reason, and it was between Sebring and Road Atlanta. Guess Sebring won it. I'd rather Yas Marina than Bahrain if they wanted a race in that region, no idea why Bahrain gets so much. Although if it were upto me the calendar would look remarkably similar to the F1 calendar bar the street races and the crap tracks (Spain, Middle East mostly)

Edit: Saying that, it still is a good calendar. You've got Silverstone, Spa, 24 hours Le Mans of course, Interlagos, Fuji Speedway(?) which I've always thought was underrated as a track, Sebring I don't know much of (it's an airport I think), China (if that's the Chinese GP track) isn't too bad either.

And a combined Petit Le Mans with the expected grid numbers at the moment is somewhere between madness and illegal, the track is only certified for 53 cars for a 10h race due to it being only 4 km around. Sebring is 6.5 km around and can take 64 cars for a 12h race according to FIA circuit guidelines; with 30 WEC entrants and in the region of 30-32 expected ALMS entrants, combined fields would be over 60 cars, and for Petit it would literally mean kicking cars out of the show.

The list on Wiki is the list that got published by the ACO, edited to be put on the season's Wiki page, along with all the driver confirmations that have happened in the mean time. And the GT field is also small at Le Mans, 33 prototypes and 22 GT cars (and one "experimental" entry), while in recent years they've generally split them half-half.

Sounds like after Peugeot's pull out it got pretty close to a situation where there would be no championship at all or no championship award in LMP1 (two manufacturers were needed, at least per the initial agreement, now we know that Toyota is the 2nd one).

Yes, AMR has actually (unofficially) mentioned a few times that they will be there. And Krohn told last week that their partial participation is quite likely as well. Don't know about PLM participation though, seeing as Fuji and Shanghai WEC rounds are now so ridiculously close

Sounds like after Peugeot's pull out it got pretty close to a situation where there would be no championship at all or no championship award in LMP1 (two manufacturers were needed, at least per the initial agreement, now we know that Toyota is the 2nd one).

Good IV with him in last week's Midweek Motorsport. Sounds like the pull out was completely out of the blue. Criticised the way Pug did it.